How Design Conveys Truth in Advertising
I recently received a copy of my local “Homes and Land” magazine in the mail. For those of you who do not know, this publication is a listing of homes for sale in any given area. It’s a large company with magazine publications in many local markets throughout the United States and Canada.
Having worked in Real Estate advertising I always thought pretty low of these types of books, because statistically they accounted for an absurdly low number of actual real estate transactions. 2006 statistics showed that less than 1% of home buyers found the home they bought using these types of publications – which is especially ironic for the magazine called “Homefinders.”
That statistic was enough to convince me that these were not the right way to go for Realtors who wanted to spend their advertising money wisely. However, I’ve just recently started to wonder why these publications have such low numbers of success. Is it simply because people look elsewhere for their home purchases? Or might there be a usability problem with the design layout of the particular magazines which inhibits buyers from finding a home? After some thought and examination of the “Homes and Land” I received in the mail, I realized that the design has nothing to do whatsoever with selling homes.
We’re currently in the market for a new home, and as a consumer and a designer, I’ve been really attentive to the way in which I search for home listing information, and how I interact with the ways in which it’s presented to me by marketers. Information architecture is everywhere, and these magazines are no exception. Information, whether intentionally or not, is presented in a form or fashion which conveys meaning, usability, and intended audience.As a home buyer, I want to be able to search by many criteria – such as price, location/neighborhood, number of bedrooms/bathrooms – NOT by Realtor. “Homes and Land,” and similar publications like “Homefinders” and “Homeseekers” all provide individually designed (or as they would suggest, “market differentiated”) ads, which are hard to read, entirely different from ad to ad, and more focused on the Realtor than the homes they are selling. While looking at the information design (if I dare call it that) for “Homes and Land” magazine I had to ask myself “who do the publishers believe their readers are and how is this conveyed in their design choices?” It is apparent that the answer to this question is not the Realtors coveted buyer, but the magazine’s coveted consumer – the Realtors themselves. Indeed, if the design was truly for a buyer, it would have a completely different information design.
Now, I know that for Realtors there is an incredible need to differentiate themselves from the “competition.” It is a dog eat dog industry, and many in it stress the need to set themselves apart from one another. It is evident, based on the design of these magazines and their low success rate, that the real reason for their existence is not to sell homes, but to meet the felt needs of Realtors for differentiation in their local markets. A magazine which was focused on meeting the needs of the home buyer would be thoughtfully laid out with their needs in mind and the structure would mimmick their user process in finding, selecting and buying a home.
“Homes and Land” is a perfect example in how the way design information structures convey a certain truth in advertising. It undermines our words and shows true intentions. While magazine publishers like those at “Homes and Land” wouldn’t necessarily say they are being deceptive with Realtors, the design of the magazine conveys one of two things: (1) the magazine designers have no clue as to the actual consumer process of a home buyer, or (2) they are not designing for the home buyer, but rather for the people who butter their bread.
This happens all the time, in many different ways – company politics, inattentive copywriters, and other factors make us stray from the intentional focus on the needs of the user and decrease the effectiveness of a design at meeting it’s stated objective.
The irony of this whole thing is that while these print publications fail miserably at conveying information in a helpful fashion for the buyer, many of the company websites get it right. With the ability to search by zip code, price range, beds and baths, and myriad other helpful filtering search choices, Homes and Land does a great job of being focused on the consumer.
August 11th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
Josh,
First off, thanks for the read I enjoyed it.
Next, I have a couple of questions:
Do you think it’s the publisher’s intention to sell the Realtor to the home buyer rather than the home?
And
Do you think the publishers are just confused as to who their readership is?
In the context of the first question when you say that “an absurdly low number of actual real estate transactions” are a result of magazines such as Homes and Land, where do the stats indicate the majority of transactions stem from?
As to the second question: what are the most efficient means in your mind to determine what the readership is and what they want?
Jon
August 13th, 2008 at 12:12 am
Thanks for your comments Jon. As per your questions. I think that if you’re strictly going off of the design of most of these types of magazines, the answer to your question would be that they are selling the Realtor to the client, and attempting to use inventory as a means to build consumer confidence. The inventory itself is not presented in a manner which suggests it’s the reason for the ad, but simple a part of the ad. So in that, I’d have to answer that the conveyed intention of the magazine is to sell the Realtor.
That said, a fundamental question has to be raised, and I think that’s what I’m trying to do. The question is: what is the natural user path for a home buyer? And as a follow-up question, how do these publications facilitate that natural process?
In the past, the user process probably went: (1) find a realtor, (2) look at houses with them, (3) buy a house. I know this is extremely simplified. With the advent of the information age, however, I believe that consumers may be flipping 1 and 2, in which case the prima modus for the initial format of the magazine is flawed. More and more individuals are doing the basic grunt work – with the aid of highly customizable search results for websites before they call a realtor. Consumers don’t just demand information on homes in this age, they EXPECT it – and they often expect it with little or not strings attached.
As Realtor’s become less and less the “keeper of the keys” – so to speak – it becomes more important to make inventory as easily accessible as possible. E-commerce has changed many markets and it has got to start changing Real Estate too. What do I mean by this? Sites like Amazon.com and eBay have created a “long tail” market where buyers are buying more diverse inventory, and more of it. By making home information more available – and redesigning print pieces to focus on this fundamental change in the way in which home buyers actually are buying a home these days, we can actually perpetuate a healthier industry in the same way that Amazon has revolutionized the way we buy books/cds/everything!
Gone is the day when consumers are starting out with finding a realtor. They want instant, intuitive, and immediate access to inventory. The easier it is for them to find it, the faster properties will sell.
Backing this deeply philosophical claim are the high success rates for the web leading people to the home they end up buying.
That’s probably enough from me for now. I do want to answer your other questions, but I fear this is already too long.